“My parent’s old holiday home on the west coast in Galway. It’s still ours, but no one’s been there for years. I think Dad’s research is hidden there somewhere.”
Mikey slammed his mug on the table and wiped his mouth. “Kyle, go and get some guns and any other treats you can think of. We’re going on a picnic to Galway.”
Kyle rose from the desk. “Sure thing, Mikey.”
He returned a few moments later with a look of concern on his face. “One thing’s already bothering me.”
“Speak up, Kyle!” Mikey said.
“Well…” As he spoke, he casually pulled a sawn-off shotgun from a sports bag and began to load it. “Thing is, we know these pricks have already killed twice, sure. But what bothers me is the quarter of a century gap between the two murders.”
Devlin nodded. “That’s what I’ve thinking about. It’s not your usual gangland hit or revenge murder. These guys are playing a long game, and are as cool as sea ice.”
“Whoever they are, they’ve had it now Mikey O’Sullivan is on the case!”
“If you say so, Mikey,” Kyle said sarcastically.
“I do, Kyle, I do.” Mikey rubbed his stomach and yawned.
“So let’s get going,” Devlin said, pushing back from the desk and finishing his whiskey.
Lea paused for a moment. This wasn’t just any old mission as far as she was concerned. This was something altogether different. This was about her father and she was already allowing her emotions to cloud her judgement. “Thanks, everyone, I really appreciate this.”
“Not at all,” Mikey said, patting her on the back and nearly knocking her over. “Come on Kyle! Get a move on!” He turned to Lea and lowered his voice. “Kyle’s a lazy shite. If there was work in the bed, he’d sleep on the floor — you know what I mean?”
Lea smiled. “So you’re both going to help then?”
“Sure,” Mikey said. “But there’s one condition.”
Devlin eyed him up suspiciously. “I knew it! And what would that be?”
“We’re taking Ciara,” Mikey said. “I’m not making a journey like this without my Ciara.”
Kyle rolled his eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Hawke and Kim Taylor approached the heavily-armed PFPA men guarding the external doors at the entrance to the Pentagon. The Pentagon Force Protection Agency was a civilian law enforcement organization within the command structure of the Department of Defense. It was assigned to protect not only the world-famous Pentagon but also the Mark Center Building and other smaller DoD facilities in the city.
Kim showed her pass and Hawke followed her as she navigated her way deftly through the labyrinthine defense headquarters until they finally reached Brooke’s sprawling suite of offices. They passed more yet guards at the door to the outer office of Brooke’s private secretary and after a brief word with his personal assistant they entered a bustling, noisy room full of men and women talking into cell-phones and vying for their boss’s attention.
Hawke took a look around the hectic office. “There are more guns around here than at your average firing range.”
“He’s the US Secretary of Defense and next in the presidential line of succession, plus we’re in the middle of our worst terror attack, Hawke,” Kim said, keeping her voice to a whisper. “What did you expect?”
Point taken, he thought. “We still need to speak to him.”
He looked over at Brooke. Alex was beside him as an assistant was now directing the boss’s attention to one of the many plasma screens neatly fitted into the far wall of the Secretary’s office. Everyone in the room watched in silence as a second helicopter drone appeared on the capital’s horizon and fired another Hellfire missile.
This time the target was the Lincoln Memorial, and a collective gasp of horror went around the room as the north side of the impressive monument exploded in a massive fireball. A few seconds later a grisly, black column of smoke billowed and plumed into the night sky, lit yellow by the memorial’s powerful floodlights.
“It’s another drone, sir!”
Brooke slammed his fist on his desk. “I can see that, damn it! Just blow the god-damn thing out of the sky like the last one.”
Another flurry of phone calls was made, and Hawke watched as two F-15s flew over the city, one of them firing an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile at the drone. The enemy aircraft tried to take evasive action and dodged the missile, but the USAF fighter jets were too fast for it and after firing another heat-seeking Sidewinder they hit the target. Everyone in the room cheered as the drone exploded above the Potomac and crashed into the water in an orange fireball.
“Now’s our chance,” Kim said.
They stepped over to Brooke’s desk.
“Mr Secretary,” Kim said.
Brooke looked at them distractedly. “What is it? Oh…” His face warmed for a moment when he saw Hawke. “Joe, hi.”
“We need to talk, Jack.”
“Shoot — but make it fast. As you can see, those sons-of-bitches somehow just got another goddamned drone up.”
“It’s about the Smithsonian.”
“What about it?”
“It’s Frank Watkins, Jack.”
Brooke smiled for a second and nodded his head. “How is the old bastard?”
“Dead, sir,” Kim said.
Brooke’s face dropped. “Dead?”
Hawke nodded. “Professional hit, and more than that — we found the President’s order on his desk — the one sanctioning the release of an object from Archive 7.”
“I can’t believe Frank’s dead… You think he was murdered by Kimble’s men?”
“We can’t be sure at this stage.”
Brooke paused as he took the news on board. “So what did Kimble order from the archive?”
“We don’t know what was released, or to whom, but whatever the hell it was, something very bad went on in that Archive, Jack. We found two men turned to stone.”
Brooke’s eyes widened with shock. “Turned to stone?”
Hawke nodded again. “But here’s the thing — when we mentioned it to the President he just shut us down — told us point blank to leave it and get back to the White House.” Hawke lowered his voice. “I think President Kimble is covering something up.”
Brooke looked at the two of them, glancing over his shoulder as an admiral brushed past him with a cell-phone in each hand.
“What is it, Dad?” Alex asked, suddenly concerned.
Brooke didn’t reply.
Alex tried again. “Whatever the hell you know about this, Dad it’s time to bring us in.”
Brooke was silent for a long time before replying, his face tormented by indecision, his mind torn in two directions — his duty to protect national security interests on the one hand but his responsibility to help Hawke, Kim and Alex as much as possible to stop the threat on the other.
“Come with me.”
He led them out of the main office into a smaller ante-room and closed the door.
“This is my private office. We can talk in here undisturbed.”
“Sounds serious,” Alex said.
Brooke ignored the comment. “What I’m about to tell you is highly classified. In fact, it’s the second highest classification we have.”
Hawke, Kim and Alex took their seats and watched the Defense Secretary as he thought about what to say next. This shit right here, Alex thought, is why my parents’ marriage fell apart.
“Back in the late sixties, the international political landscape was very different to today. We were in the middle of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and our foreign policy was, accordingly, slightly more…”
“Paranoid?” Alex said.
Brooke gave his daughter a withering glance. “I was going to say slightly more interventionist than today. You had to be there to understand how it was. Like today, covert intelligence gathering was a big part of that policy. We had listening stations all over the world in a bid to intercept communiqués passing back and forth between the Kremlin and various Soviet client states around the world. These proxy states — Cuba, North Vietnam, Mozambique — were very important to the USSR as part of their plan to expand communism around the world.”